


Handful of Years

by TeamAbaddon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamAbaddon/pseuds/TeamAbaddon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A handful of years, really. Just a  handful, and how fast they had passed. The first few months had hung heavy in his ribs, like honey on the side of a jar during the winter cold.</p><p>They moved easier now, like molasses on a hot summer day; still thick and suffocating, but flowing with more ease than before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handful of Years

**Author's Note:**

> Written by Sam and Kieran.

States; lives away, too far to touch fingers or whisper in ears but close enough to stare at the same night sky and whisper into receivers of telephones. Close enough so text messages still reach; just states, not countries – close and so far apart.

**Remember that summer we sat outside of the movie theater for hours after the last show and planned our big escape? How we were going to go somewhere new where no one knew us and slip into quiet lives of anonymity?**

Castiel stared down at the phone sitting next to him on his bed, the screen lit up from the impromptu text message from Dean. Dean Winchester, his oldest friend who only existed to him for the last handful of years as binary code and satellite signals.

_There are many facets of life that alter in time. I wish it were so simple, to climb into the Impala late at night and just drive until we reached the ocean._

It had been a plan to break for a place on a beach; somewhere where the waves would erase their footsteps from the sand and leave no story of them behind for anyone to find or follow. They had a map with roads highlighted and routes planned out. They had discussed where they would go, how long they would stay, and what they would do while there.

But Dean had moved away; their red string snipped as his family drove away in a moving van for a new town with new people and a fresh start. Dean had been Castiel’s first, last, and only love. He’d been single ever since Dean moved away. No one could hold his interest, and in time he stopped trying to find anyone who would.

He clung to the random text messages, the drunken phone calls when Dean asked if Castiel remembered their first kiss and how he’d sneezed during it and their teeth had clacked together uncomfortably. Dean would ask Castiel if he was seeing anyone, would tell him that he was the basis of comparison for relationships, and everyone was found wanting.

Dean would remind Castiel of how he had cried the night before the Winchester family moved and had choke out between sobs that he would wait for Dean to come back. Dean would push Castiel into the cage and lock the door, keep him shut away from feeling anything for anyone who wasn’t him. He held Castiel’s heart a prisoner; he refused to let him go.

States away, far too far.

**Less money, less time, a lot of complications. My life in a nutshell.**

_I feel like I’m dying from stagnation._

**Sammy thinks I’m becoming disassociated from people in general.**

_I’m always left feeling empty when I get home at the end of the day._

**I have to fake enthusiasm about being with people I used to like being around.**

_I’m empty._

**I miss you.**

Years, a handful of years. Castiel remembered the taste of apple pie in Dean’s mouth, the sticky filling on his lips and the smell of summer nights as they explored the woods after dinner. He remembered the feel of the grass under his feet and the sound of Dean laughing as he and Sam chased each other with water guns.

A handful of years; they were still in high school back when they finally found themselves alone with a bed in one of their houses long enough to explore all the things their pent up teenage hormones said they should explore. The taste of Dean in his mouth, the feel of Dean’s sweat slick body over his own and the fumbling with the condoms – three, because they managed to break two before getting one to roll on Dean properly – and the embarrassing squawk Castiel gave at the first touch of a lubed finger tip at his hole.

He remembered how he still carried pain in the small of his back when he tried to run down the sidewalk the next afternoon, eyes brimming with tears as he tried to chase the moving van as far as he could down the road because the only thing that had ever really mattered to him was leaving him behind.

_It’s been nearly nine years, Dean._

A handful of years, really. Just a handful, and how fast they had passed. The first few months had hung heavy in his ribs, like honey on the side of a jar during the winter cold.

They moved easier now, like molasses on a hot summer day; still thick and suffocating, but flowing with more ease than before.

**I never came looking for you.**

_I never came looking for you, either._

They were adults now, capable of getting in a car and going wherever they wanted. But they had responsibilities now; bills to pay, people who would question their absences. There were charity bake sales to organize and tests to grade. There was online training to complete, meetings to be scheduled and purchase orders to be approved. There were computers to be installed, children to smile at, and cold beds to return to.

They never looked for each other, drowning in stagnant waters as they were with their hands clutching cellphones that brought them small bouts of happiness through illuminated screens and little black pixels arranged in the forms of letters.

**Myrtle Beach.**

_Running down the beach at high tide, trying to fight the waves and making it back to the hotel room sopping wet with salt in our hair and eyes. A shower, then bed, and staying in bed until we needed to eat._

**Louisville.**

_Waverly Hills; a night there, to see if it was really haunted or not._

**New Orleans.**

_Mardi Gras._

It went on; Dean naming places they’d charted out and Castiel replying with what they planned to do there. Each text was painful; a reminder of wasted time worrying about this or that and if the milk was still good or not. A reminder that nearly ten years had gone by and Castiel had subsisted entirely on brief text messages late at night.

**The Impala.**

_Home. Wherever we were, it was always home. Free to be you and me._

The text messages stopped; time ticked by slowly, and as Cas put his phone on the charger he briefly wondered how long it would be before he received another text message from Dean and if it would be to tell him he was in another new relationship or to tell him that no one measured up, still, after all this time and Dean was still in love with him.

\--

Castiel was embarrassingly easy to find.

He hadn’t ventured far away from their small hometown on the outskirts of Nowhere, South Carolina. He’d only moved into the city limits – renting a small apartment downtown above the wine shop.

Dean remembered their first actual date. He’d taken Castiel downtown, and he’d kissed him in the alcove under the clock tower.

Castiel had a clear view of the clock tower from the window of his apartment, and Dean had to wonder if he looked at the clock tower each night and remembered how Dean had tried to make it romantic, but only succeeded in laughing when Castiel sneezed and their teeth had clashed together instead.

Next door to the wine shop was a café and bookstore; new additions to downtown that hadn’t been there when he was a teenager and making plans to run away from their small hometown and explore everything the wide open road had to offer them. It had been a Masonic lodge before; unused and in bad shape, but the lettering had been on the awning for years and they’d always called it as it was labeled. The Harold Journal building was just a stone’s throw away, and there was a new ice skating rink built in the knoll that separated the two sides of the street.

Delaney’s was already playing music on the PA system outside and Wild Wing was busy as he’d remembered it being when he was seventeen.

He took a deep breath, tired and in need of something with caffeine. He’d been driving all night, since before his first text message to Castiel, and he was tired. He climbed into the Impala and pulled out, carefully making his way down to the first intersection and turning right, heading for the Marriott Hotel he’d gotten a room in for his brief stay in Spartanburg.

He was hoping – praying, even – that he’d keep his nerve and do what he came to town to do. It all began and ended with Castiel. It always did.

He was unlocking his room when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He smiled, briefly, as he entered the room (much nicer than he’d grown accustomed to) and pulled his phone out.

_I think I’m going crazy._

**You’ve always been crazy, Cas.**

_I thought I saw your car outside my apartment when I got out of the shower._

**Miss me so much you’re hallucinating?**

_Assbutt._

Dean chuckled as he put his phone on the charger and climbed into bed. He’d been lying for so long, telling Castiel that he had a steady job and a nice place and his family was doing good.

His family was broken, scattered across the country and barely talking. He and Sam talked the most, keeping up with each other and Sam trying to convince Dean to settle down; find a place to live and have a life.

Dean had lived on the road for so long, avoiding the one place he wanted to be out of fear that it would crack and crumble like his own family had.

\--

Castiel stared up at the clock tower, a small smile playing on his lips as he remembered the way Dean had chastised him for ruining a perfectly good kiss with a sneeze and telling him the chick flick moment was over.

Dean had pulled him along to the fountain, took off his shoes and socks and rolled his pants up so he could wade in the water and fish the silver change from the bottom. They’d been run off by a bicycle cop, laughing as they crossed Main Street until they’d reached the clearing across the street from the library and crawled in the teepees made from recycled materials to hide.

They’d gotten their second kiss right that time.

“Remember that week Sam, you, and me went around calling ourselves the Downtown Bandits and climbing on roofs of random buildings?” Castiel jumped at the familiar sound of Dean’s voice, his hand clutching at his chest above his heart as he turned to stare wide eyed at his first, last, and only love.

Years, a handful of years crumbling into broken shards of glass as Dean wrapped an arm around his waist and cupped his cheek, breathed in the scent of him, and leaned in for a gentle press of lips that spoke of wasted time and tasted of cherry pie.

“Welcome home, Dean.” Castiel’s voice was low, barely a whisper, but Dean didn’t have to hear the words Castiel said. He could read them in the brush of lips against lips.

“Sorry I’m late.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can stalk our Lord and Dictator (aka the person who does 90% of all the writing for Team Abaddon) on Tumblr at [cockteaseofthelord](http://cockteaseofthelord.tumblr.com).


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